Can you spot me?

I’M BACK!!!!!

            The concert was freaking amazing! I’ve met so many people. It’s been more than a week and I’m still incredibly excited. These past few days were all a blur. We performed our grand finale at the Sydney Opera House and some of us also had a site-seeing tour all around the city. The weather was fantastic, the people were fantastic, the FOOD was fantastic, everything was just too amazing for words. The orchestra consisted of almost every single instrument you can imagine, ranging from traditional orchestral instruments such as the violin and clarinet, to little trinkets like the tambourine and the triangle, to cultural instruments like the Chinese guzheng. Instruments such as the timpani, the piccolo, and the electric guitar were also featured. In conclusion, we rocked the house!

            The entire performance composed of many pieces, and smashed in between are “Meeting the Members” clips where the big screen behind us showed how many of the people in the orchestra centered their life around music and how difficult it was to meet up and deliver the outstanding performance. I met this really nice Russian guy named Ivan. He’s 26 years old and he’s been playing with a private teacher since he was six. He’s currently attending the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. His whole life had been about music. So the little clips illustrated how music really changed our lives.

          Some of the pieces we played were our audition pieces. We opened the show with the “Roman Carnival” by Hector Berlioz. He was a French Romantic composer mostly composed from 1820s to the 1850s. Mostly affected by Gluck, Mozart, and Webber, the “Roman Carnival” was a smooth and cheerful piece that featured a happy, if not a little dramatic theme. In the middle of the concert, Mason Bates also came on stage for the premier of his piece “Mothership”. Not to brag or anything but I think we totally nailed that 110%.  Overall we played 13 pieces - Roman Carnival - Overture, Op. 9 by Hector Berlioz, Arrival on a Platform Humlet by Percy Grainger, Toccata in F major for organ by Johan Bach, Danza del trigo by Alberto Ginastera, Canon in three voices by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34 by  Benjamin Britten, Kalkadunga by William Barton, Suna by Timothy Constable, Fanfare for the Vienna Philharmonic by Richard Strauss, Mothership by Mason Bates, Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 by Felix Mendelssohn, Ascending Bird - Suite for string orchestra by Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghaei, and The Firebird Suite, by Igor Stravinsky. Our encore song was Rosamunde by Franz Schubert.
            This whole thing had been an amazing experience for me. After this, I think that music will be something I’m going to do as a career. I know that it’s a risky choice but it’s also what I’m really passionate about.

            Expect an update next week!

Just a few more weeks until Sydney guys! This is probably going to be my last post before the trip. I’ve been so busy lately getting all the documents together and trying to pack. Because this trip involves crossing borders, the Orchestra people sent me a bunch of documents to sign and it’s just a huge pain in the behind. And adding to my hectic schedule, I just received through email all the pieces that we’re going to perform at the Live Event concert. There are about thirteen pieces that I have to pretty much memorize before March 20^th. The pieces range from classical orchestra (Toccata in F Major by Bach) to modern awesomeness (Mothership by Mason Bates). I actually played some of the pieces before so it’s not really all that difficult. But all of those pieces are designed for a full orchestra so it’s going to be quite a challenge putting it all together. I feel bad for Michael Thomas already (he has to deal with 101 people who he has never met before in person). But I also heard we are arriving a few days before the concert just to rehearse so I guess it’ll all be okay.

            Yesterday, the section leader for Second violins had contacted me to ask me if I have any concerns over the pieces. She seems like a really nice lady and I can’t wait to meet her. I’m not sure how the section leaders are chosen but I think it’s based on how well your audition went. Our auditions were based on a point system with a maximum of twenty points awarded to each section in the rubric (like twenty points for musicianship and twenty points for creativity etc). That was how they decided who was going to be the finalists. I guess that the people with the most points for each instrument become section leaders.   

            Anyways, it’s now 2: 45 am and I really need to get to bed.  I have to wake up early to go to Service Ontario tomorrow (to renew my passport). Thanks for all the support, my amazing followers, see you in a month!

I’m going to SYDNEY guys!

            I’ve just been informed that I’m an official “Competition winner”; that means I get to go on an all expenses paid trip (hotel fees, travel fees etc) to Australia to perform at the Live Event as a member of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. Several of the other contest winners have already contacted me to express their excitement. From what I heard, there are in total 101 members of the group from 33 countries (USA, UK, China, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Sweden etc). The group features people from as young as 15 all the way up to 40. I think that the diversity is absolutely amazing. Most of these players were either trained as a child or have started quite late in their twenties. Either way, all of the competition winners had some professional training at some point in their life and most are rather well-established performers in their home country. For me, I’ve been playing the violin since I was five (not to brag, but I’m kind of like a professional now too J).

            Also, I received a message from Michael Tilson Thomas, the official conductor for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011. He is an American composer, pianist, conductor, and is one of the administrators that helped to create the YouTube Orchestra in 2009. He was born in Los Angeles and attended the University of Southern California to further his music studies. In 1969, he conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra and gained international attention. Basically, he will be the one to decide our performance pieces and seating arrangements. He seems like a promising individual, and I can’t wait to meet him!

I’ve been selected as a finalist!!!! YES! The people from YouTube Symphony Orchestra had contacted me today to congratulate me on being one of the 300 people as a “Potential Finalist”. The audition process is now more than half way through.  They have evaluated me based on my interpretation of the classical music composition, musicality, originality, vitality, creativity and how well I pulled it off as a whole!  The judges varied from both competition administrators to professionals from London Symphony Orchestra/other musical organizations. They emailed me a bunch of agreement and release forms that I have to get back to them by December 7. This is so exciting! Please don’t forget to vote for me!

Thank you guys so much for the wonderful comments on audition videos. If I could, I’ll just reach out from the internet and hug you all. But seriously, I really appreciate it. I’ve been getting a lot more views than I did a year ago and it just makes me so happy hearing people comment on how much I’ve improved. Tomorrow, the judges are going to pick the finalists for voting so I’m really excited. I think my audition videos are pretty decent compared to some of the other ones. Oh btw, I saw this really awesome solo improvisation audition. The guy was using this clarinet thing but except it wasn’t a clarinet, it’s a MIDI wind controller. The way he played it sounds really jazzy and I think he portrayed the whole atmosphere of the piece really well. Mason Bates really did a good job on Mothership and I guess the YouTube community didn’t disappoint him by coming up with these amazing ideas!

Hey guys, I’m finally back. After a busy and extremely eventful summer, it’s so great to be able to blog again. I hope everyone had a great vacation (met cute guys, got tanned etc). Anyways, since this is a blog about music, I want to share with you guys some ideas I had in mind for the coming 2011 year.

As you guys can probably tell from my entries back in 2009, I had tried out for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and failed miserably. So when they called out for another audition on October 12, I knew I had to try again. This year’s requirements are almost the same as last year’s except this time it’s one video on solo improvisation and a classical audition video. The classical audition video is pretty simple. You just go on the competition website, find your instruments, and play the repertoire of classical music specifically listed for your instruments.  I already downloaded the music sheets and it’s not that difficult to play (I practiced a lot over the summer!). The second part of the audition is the solo improvisation. I’m not sure what it is so I looked it up. Apparently it’s something like a new music statement over the harmony of the original piece, almost like a variation except you’re playing while the original music is in the background. The competition requires you to do a solo improvisation on a piece called Mothership by Mason Bates. He’s an American composer who likes to include electronics in a symphony orchestra, which I think is pretty creative. He got a PhD from UC Berkeley in composition and is always commissioned by big-shot symphonies like the London Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has worked closely with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and composer/conductor John Adams. He was hired by Google in 2010 for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and did the Mothership piece. I listened to Mothership and from what I can tell, it’s like a sci-fi kind of thing but with techno and classical music all jumbled together. Strange, but pretty cool. The improvisation video will be quite challenging for me to do but I also think it will be a whole lot of fun.

The prize for this year will be an all-expenses paid trip to Sydney, Australia to perform at the Sydney Opera House! Considering I’ve never been anywhere outside of Ontario, it’s a pretty big thing for me!

Anyways, I think I’m going to go practice violin now. The audition ends on November 28 so that doesn’t really leave me with much time. Be sure to come support my videos when I post them!

I didn’t make it. Life sucks. 

First of all, before I say anything, I just want to say thank you guys so much for the amount of support I got from my awesome followers of this blog and my viewers on YouTube. You guys make me so happy!

            Okay, as many of you already know, I posted my two audition videos three days ago. One was of course “The Internet Symphony No.1 Eroica” composed by Tan Dun and the other piece I have chosen to audition was the First Movement of “Concerto in A Minor” by Bach. I think I played both pieces pretty well and have gotten quite a lot of nice feedbacks.

            “The Internet Symphony No. 1 Eroica” is actually a rather interesting piece (if you haven’t heard it, go listen to it now!). The beginning starts off with really short and fast notes with a tempo of allegretto, then it suddenly moves into about 19 bars of soft slow music before going super speed at bar 28. It’s actually broken down into four movements and each movement has a different tempo. As a second violin, the majority of the piece is fast-moving staccatos. Both the notes and rhythms are fairly simple. I guess that the judges are just going to focus more on how well your notes sound rather than what notes you can reach. Overall though, I think that the Eroica is a pretty cool piece because it’s quite different than the usual classical pieces people normally hear with orchestras and the style is really unique in the way it was composed. The score is written for a Full Orchestra so there’s a part in there for everyone.

            Since I really liked Tan Dun, I did a little bit of research on him. Apparently, he is a Chinese Contemporary classical composer born in China. He loved music when he was young and created his own music group in the village he grew up in. The school he went to was the Central Conservatory of Music located in Beijing and that place really influenced his music style.  When he moved to America, he met a bunch of other composers and thus started his composing career. In 2008, he was commissioned by Google to do the Eroica piece for the YouTube Orchestra. I’m not sure what his inspiration for the piece is but if I have to guess, it’s probably about how amazed he is at how fast technology is changing our lives (it’s called “Internet” Eroica for a reason) and about the exciting possibility of an online-collaborative orchestra.

            Anyways, I think that’s about it for now. I’m actually pretty nervous because tomorrow the auditions will officially end and a panel of judges will begin to select the few finalists. After that, the YouTube community will cast their votes. Sure hope I make it, make sure you all go and vote for me! :)

Sorry for the late update, but life has been quite unfriendly to me lately. Now that I’m back though, I have some BIG news! I’m not sure if anyone reading my blog had heard but yesterday, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra had just revealed that they’re going to hold an audition, digitally, on the YouTube website! Isn’t that so amazing? I know it’s not really a big fancy thing to be so excited about, but just the idea of being able to communicate about music online with other music-lovers completely fascinates me. Their official YouTube website states that they are a “global endeavor devoted to share the love of music with the world’s diversity”. I think that it’s a really great goal and it depicts very well that when it comes to music, there are no borders.

I remember first hearing about the orchestra near mid December last year. An article from the L.A. times said that the age for violinists and other instrumentalists had finally come, and that YouTube was going to launch the first ever online-collaborative orchestra. Being a violinist myself, I was of course excited to the extreme, but did not really look much into it due to my eventful (hectic) Christmas break.

So they just announced that they’re going an audition. Being the music fanatic I am, you can bet that this blog will follow closely to the various audition videos that is going to soon flood YouTube. If any of my lovely followers wants to participate, be sure to tell me!

Love and kisses to you all! Expect another update sometime next week!